I'm Not Good at This
by everlovin
Summary: How might Ronon have reacted during Quarantine given that he hates closed in spaces. Plus some Ronon/Jenn shippiness. For Quarantine Day '18.


I'm Not Good at This

Disclaimer: I still don't own SGA. I'm starting to doubt I ever will.

Rating: T

Pairing: Ronon/Jenn

Episode: Quarantine (413)

Summary: What would Quarantine look like if they had highlighted Ronon's dislike of enforced enclosure (a la The Ark (316?) and then add in some shippiness. For the '18 Quarantine Day. What is this, 7 or 8 of them now?

It was just another day at Atlantis and ordinarily Ronon would be practically itching to get out and move, to do, to go. That compulsion had eased some over the years. There were days still that he couldn't believe he was no longer running from the wraith.

The need to continue moving had shifted farther away in the last months. He was becoming perfectly content passing time right there and spending the time with Jennifer.

So here he was, with a stupid grin on his face, headed to the infirmary. He knew he didn't really need stitches. He'd had far worse even back in his Training Academy days. His taskmaster would have ignored the little bit of blood. He'd put a dressing on it and keep training.

But time with Jennifer, feeling her gentle touch, and seeing her shy smile, was worth any teasing from Sheppard. It was worth the voices from the past sneering at him. It was worth it.

He grinned as he saw her just inside the infirmary doors. She smiled back and his heart raced like when he was a dozen years and a lifetime younger.

He barely settled on the med bed when the doors slammed shut. It was only Jenn's firm hand on his wrist as she was suturing the cut that stopped him from jumping up as they closed him – them – in.

"Just wait until I get this done. Then we'll figure out what's going on." She did tap her communicator. "Colonel Carter, this is Doctor Keller. Come in." With a slight frown, she continued to place the butterfly stitches to Ronon's arm.

The minute she was done, he was up and examining the doors. If he could just. . . wedge his fingers. . . in there, he might be able to force the doors open. "What the hell is going on here?"

Jenn watched his struggles and tapped her communicator again. "Doctor McKay, this is Doctor Keller. Are you there?" And again. Nothing.

Jenn paced across the room and back. "It must be another disease outbreak. McKay said he was going to modify the quarantine systems. Make it more efficient." She was doing her very best to not stare at Ronon as he tried to pry the doors open. Outbreak, Jenn. People are sick. Not bulging shoulder muscles.

"How's cutting of the radios make it more efficient?" Ronon seemed more irritated than the situation called for yet. That yet always seemed to be a required word on Atlantis.

"Obviously, there is a glitch in the program." 'Sick people, Jenn.' "Problem is, without communications, he can't tell me how bad the outbreak is or give me pass codes to open whichever doors are deemed safe."

"Great," he came back without a lot of surprise.

"Well in any case, I should be ready to treat the sick when they bring them in." She turned to Ronon, "Will you help me?"

"Tell me what to do." He was relieved to be doing something, being proactive rather than just standing around.

They spent the next half hour checking diagnostic equipment, medicine supplies, oxygen tanks, and other supplies. Until eventually, even that totally spurious excuse of an activity was done. Her infirmary was well stocked and organized at all times for it to take very long. Ronon hefted a couple of cases over near the main exit toward the control room and the task of getting ready for the outbreak was done.

Jenn stood there wondering what to do next. Ronon started pacing the rooms – checking the exits, the windows, looking for ventilation shafts – anything for an exit.

Nothing.

Ronon couldn't simply sit still. It wasn't bad yet, but the walls were starting to close in on him. There was no way to see what was coming at him. It had helped to do something, but all was in readiness now.

And Ronon paced. Back and forth. Forth and back. He made circuits of the rooms, looking. Always looking for weaknesses in his cage, ready for all threats that might come at him. Finally, he grabbed an IV pole and jammed the top into the seam at the main doors. Obviously, he wasn't strong enough, but a wedge might force them open.

His team might be among the sick. Teyla and her baby, Sheppard, McKay. These four people _were_ his world. Jenn had to get to the sick. He had to get out of this room.

He kept the force steady on the IV pole with no luck. Just a bit more torque might do the trick...and the metal broke at the force applied.

"Hey, hey, hey!" One quick look at his arm showed Jenn renewed the damage to his arm. "You're bleeding again." She grabbed his arm and steered him toward the gurney. "It looks like the broken end of the IV cut across your wound." She left him to settle as she went to get her supplies. "Honestly, I've never met anyone with such reckless aggression."

Ronon just smirked.

Jenn rolled her eyes. "That wasn't a compliment."

"If you say so." He was still amused at her complaining about her ruined work. The IV pole was neither reckless nor aggressive. That was an edging desperation. And Sheppard wasn't around to fight him to the death.

"Lay down," she directed pointing at the bed. "Look, I don't think we're gonna have any luck opening those doors on our own. We're probably better off waiting for McKay and the others to figure out what needs to be done."

"So we're just supposed to sit here and wait?" Ronon growled. "I'm not good at this," he offered by way of apology. "Being trapped in. Just sitting and waiting."

"No kidding," Jenn laughed. Ronon smiled inwardly. It was worth almost anything to see her smile. It settled his nerves in an indefinable way.

"So, what do we do?" Ronon was up for anything.

"I've been meaning to ask. For a few weeks now even." Jenn's nervous fidgeting had his complete attention. "Umm. I was useless to help Teyla on New Athos. I can't fight. I can't shoot. I wouldn't have even been able to walk through the woods without Teyla." Ronon couldn't deny her assessment of her skills. Teyla had commented about the failed mission to New Athos. He'd made the same assessment not long after she got to Atlantis. Still, it was somehow also not true. She was more than what he'd originally dismissed. Jenn took a deep breath. "I was hoping you could teach me to fight."

Now that was something Ronon could work with. He jumped up and shoved the gurney over to the wall. "Com'on. We need some space." It wasn't like they needed a _lot_ of space and equipment for an initial lesson.

They spent the next hour working on Jennifer's fighting posture and basic blocking. It soothed Ronon's nerves like not much else could. The familiar method of teaching and correcting was ingrained in him. It was purpose. It was fighting against impossible odds. It was a way of protecting the woman he cared about in a way Melena never let him.

Eventually, Ronon judged that she'd done enough for the day. Jennifer still needed to be fresh for when the doors opened and the sick started coming into the infirmary.

Ronon starting looking around again for something to keep the walls from closing in.

"Well, maybe we could pass the time getting to know each other better," Jenn suggested.

Ronon arched an eyebrow. She didn't really mean what that sounded like. Did she? Not that he would mind. There were more than a few Marines who talked like they were interested. Of course, those were the ones he paid extra attention to their training. "What did you have in mind?"

Jenn must have realized the implications of her suggestion. "Oh! I, I mean...I didn't...you know. I meant...talk." Nervous laughter bubbled out of her. "I didn't mean...Yeah! So, anyway, let's talk."

Together, they walked circles around the infirmary. "You okay?" Ronon asked. Worry was starting to show on her face.

"Yeah, I just...I don't like sitting around either. Especially when there's people out there who need me." Jenn blew at her bangs.

"You're not letting them down." Ronon knew that for fact.

"There's a disease outbreak. And I'm a doctor stuck in this room." Her passion for helping people colored her voice.

"That's right. Stuck. It's not your fault you can't get to them. So, don't put the blame on yourself." Somehow, they both stopped walking at the same time. Ronon cleared his throat. "You remind me of someone I used to know. She put way too much pressure on herself." He kept looking between Jennifer and his memories.

"Someone from Sateda?" Not many people asked him about his homeworld or his people. Ronon wasn't at all surprised Jenn would be one to break the unspoken taboo.

"Yeah." It was hard to get the word past the lump forming in his throat.

"Who was she?" Ronon smiled at the question. The memory. So many memories of Melena and her soft heart and idealistic spirit.

"She was someone that I cared about." Memories of their time together. "She was killed during the siege." Memories of her death.

"I'm sorry."

Ronon shook off the lingering sadness. "I wanted her to leave, but she chose to stay behind and help the others. Should've forced her to go." After everything. That was still the one thing he could not forgive himself for. He couldn't forgive Kell for surviving when Melena died. He couldn't forgive the wraith for taking everything from him.

But he had learned to live with it in the last two and a half years.

"That's not your fault. She chose to stay." Jennifer was nothing if not passionate about those she cared about. "Don't take that from her. And don't put that blame on yourself."

Ronon could almost believe her. Almost.

The moment was broken when an alarm sounded from the center of the city.

"That's the self destruct. The outbreak? It can't have spread as much as a self destruct would warrant." Jenn spoke her thoughts. "There's nothing in the database of anything that will spread this quickly. There must have been more than a glitch."

"Hell with this." Ronon starting trying to pry the doors apart again.

"We've already tried. It's not going to open."

Ronon let out a frustrated breath. "We're gong to have to blast a hole in it." He was energized again. There was a goal. And now, like Sheppard said, he could do something about it. 'What do we have and what do we need.' Well, there was locked doors.

"With what? You don't have your gun." And there is what they needed. A weapon, an accelerant, an explosive.

"Got any C4 in here?" It was worth the question. Even if it were to get a smile from Jenn.

"In the infirmary?" Ok, so that last question wasn't so great. She was questioning his sanity.

"Anything we can use to act as an explosive?" he asked curiously.

"I don't know. Uh…." Jenn looked around the room. "The oxygen tanks, maybe?"

Ronon grinned. Now they had a plan. "Right! Shoot them like Sheriff Brody did in the movie Jaws!"

Jenn blinked. "Yeah, I know. How did you…?"

Ronon was still grinning. "Sheppard showed it to me. It was a good movie." Of course, some of the movies Sheppard showed him weren't so good, but that was neither here nor there. "Flammable." He hefted the tank over to the gurney and aimed it for the door. "Now all we need is a gun to shoot it with. You got one in here?"

Jennifer rolled her eyes. "Again. Infirmary."

They took a minute to figure out how to blast the tank. "If I score it at the top, it'll be easier to break off at the correct place. We just need something with enough force to break it the rest of the way."

"Good thinking. I can use another one on a med bed and use a remote control to smash it off." They really were going to get out of here soon. The walls were opening up figuratively if not literally.

"This is not going to work." There was Jennifer's doubting nature.

Ronon reached up and tied his dreds behind his head. "What are you talking about. This is your idea."

"Yeah, but there's a one in a million chance that it'll work." Jennifer really sounded nervous.

"Well, this is that one." Ronon believed that. He tried to make Jennifer believe that with his own belief.

"If I cut a millimeter too far..."

"The tank will blow. I know. So just make sure you don't cut too far. Just score it like you said. It's nothing more than you performing surgery. You can do it." She still looked anxious. "Look. If _you_ don't do it, _I'm_ going to do it." His definitive tone must have convinced her because she nodded in agreement. "You've got this."

The next few minutes were marked with stutters of drill bursts. Ronon worked to reinforce the wall they'd be hiding behind.

"Ok. That's it. I mean, that's as far as I should go."

"All right. Let's do this." Ronon double checked that everything was ready. He herded Jenn around the corner and hunkered down. It was all he could do to not wrap a mattress around her, tuck her under his arm, cover her from in the impending destruction. "You ready?"

"No."

Ronon just grinned at her acknowledgment of the inevitable and pressed the button. For the next minute and a half, the oxygen tank sailed and crashed into everything in the main room. Finally, the mayhem stopped and he tapped Jenn's arm. "You ok?"

"Yeah."

"All right." Ronon straightened up and made the corner.

"Oh you have got to be kidding me!" Ronon laughed internally at the horror in her voice.

"It's a lot stronger than a shark." Jennifer looked up at him like he was crazy.

"So what now? I mean...I don't even want to think of cleaning up that mess right now. There probably isn't an outbreak. And to top it all off, the self destruct may or may not be about to go off." Jennifer looked like she was at a loss.

"Now, nothing." He just sat down against the nearest gurney and waited. He'd done all he could think of to get them out of there, and nothing.

Jennifer slid down next to him.

"I had you wrong." He had to offer her something. When she just gave him a blank look, he continued. "When you first came here, I thought you were weak. That you didn't belong."

Jenn shook her head. "It's the story of my life. Growing up I skipped through grades and graduated when I was fifteen. Got my Bachelor's Degree before I was even old enough to vote. I missed out on lots of things. Any kind of social event, you know parties and dances." Ronon was entranced. She had never opened up about anything not professionally related to him before. "I don't remember a time in my life where I belonged." He didn't think she ever opened up about personal insecurities to anyone before.

"Yeah, well, blowing up that tank? You really showed yourself." He was becoming more and more enthralled with her. Her shy hesitation, her passion for healing, her uncertain willingness to stretch outside her comfort zone.

She smiled and it lit up the room. "But it didn't work."

"That's not the point."

Ronon scooted closer to her. Everything about her just drew him. And their time alone just reinforced that. She must have felt at least some of that because she leaned her head on his shoulder. The fragrance of her hair was just too tempting. He leaned down that extra inch and breathed it into his lungs. Startled, she looked up and met his eyes. It was electrifying. As much as he wanted to live in this anticipation, he wanted this moment.

He wanted to taste her lips and see if they were as sweet as they looked and he'd often imagined. And then she was reaching up to him and they met. And all the imagining and anticipation paled to the reality of kissing her. Desire rose and lust mixed in. Ronon lost himself in the sweetness and passion of it all. It was more than he could ever believe he could have after losing so much.

It was...everything.

Everything.

Ronon would give everything to make a life with Jennifer a reality. He would do anything to make her see that he would make her happy.

Finally, he pulled away. As much as he wanted more now, he wanted to wallow in the anticipation of it longer.

"I was right about that though. Mostly."

Jennifer offered him another one of her glowing smiles. "I've wondered about that too."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

A/N - So, still not quite what I was envisioning. Someday I'll figure it out. Hope everyone has had a happy Quarantine Day! Reviews are wonderful!


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